Harms Preserve

When it comes to land preservation, sometimes slow and steady wins the race.  The Hunterdon Land Trust is excited to announce that a critical property in its Lockatong Creek project area has recently been preserved, the result of years of effort and dogged determination.

This property, known as the Harms tract, contains a total of 326 acres straddling Kingwood and Delaware Townships that are contiguous with the Lockatong Creek, and adjacent to lands already preserved through the efforts of the Trust.  In September this property was preserved through a direct acquisition by the State of New Jersey. The purchase price of $5,000,000 was funded through the Garden State Preservation Trust Fund’s Green Acres program. The preserve will be added to the state’s Lockatong Wildlife Management Area and it will be managed by the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife.

“This one is a real gem,” said Margaret Waldock, executive director of the Hunterdon Land Trust, “it took years of effort but our persistence has finally paid off.  The forests of this property are absolutely critical to maintaining the high quality of the Lockatong Creek and we are so very appreciative of the state Green Acres program for making this property a priority.” 

The property contains some of the highest quality, mature, contiguous forests in the creek corridor consisting of oak, hickory, beech, sugar maple, white pine and hemlock trees along with a profusion of native shrubs including shadbush and maple leaf viburnum. 

This had long been a priority parcel for the land trust, being one of the largest contiguous properties in the watershed with a single owner.  Through the years, the land trust made contact with the owners but to no avail. They simply were not interested in preservation.  But the situation changed back in February of 2006 when the land trust saw an opportunity to engage the state Green Acres program in the protection of the property—the state had recently secured a purchase contract on a smaller parcel across the creek.  Luckily, the landowners reconsidered and with the help of the land trust, submitted an application to the state acquisition program. 

The Hunterdon Land Trust was instrumental in educating the landowners about the advantages of preserving the property rather than developing it. “We spend a great deal of time and effort reaching out to landowners and helping them understand their options.  State and county programs can be daunting to those unfamiliar with them and there is a lot of misinformation about how these programs work,” said Waldock, “if it were not for our outreach and education efforts many properties like this would not find their way to preservation.” 

Patience and partnership have paid off, resulting in the protection of a property that will help keep the forested stream corridor of the Lockatong intact, providing habitat for threatened forest interior bird species and plant species and assuring that the stream remain habitat for a local trout population.